<p>Okay, so here’s the thing CC,
I’m South African (of Indian origin) and sick and tired of the lack of opportunity my country. I don’t know if any of you would find my story interesting, but here it goes anyways:
(There is a question and request for advice at the end, I promise.)</p>
<p>I come from a “previously disadvantaged” (the PC term used to describe the ill-effects of apartheid) Indian neighborhood and grew up in a lower-middle-class household. We weren’t poor, but we were by no means rich either. My parents worked their butts off to provide as best they could for me and my siblings. The schools in my area, being “non-white”, were never funded or maintained as well as “white-only” schools were and as such, prospects for students of colour, were pretty bleak. However, thanks to the dedication and effort of committed educators, we had a strong academic background and even produced some of the country’s top students in past years. In 1994, when I was in 1st grade, new school policy allowed students to take indigenous languages as a subject (a second language is compulsory in order to graduate high school in our system). These were never offered before because of Apartheid. I happened to attend one of the schools where this new curriculum would be trialled. The teachers at school, most of whom were also Indian, had themselves never learned these languages and since African languages aren’t a “written” language and have
little history in literature or grammar, there were not many resources available to learn from. They adapted quickly though, attending teacher conferences and workshops so that they could learn an in turn, pass their knowledge onto us. </p>
<p>All seemed to be going well and we were slowly progressing into a well balanced, truly democratic society where not just Africans spoke indigenous languages. It all came to a halt when we entered high school, and the school employed some newly qualified teachers as South Africa’s neighborhoods slowly became more diverse. Some were good teachers who continued the good work their predecessors did, others were atrocious - just showing up to get paid. Unfortunately for me, our second language teacher was one of the latter.They guy was barely bilingual thus making his ability to teach Zulu to students whose first language is English, almost non-existent. Even though we had complained year after year of High School, nothing much could be done as the school operated on a limited budget and could not afford another teacher nor find a suitable candidate who was willing to teach in a poorer school. I myself, have always been an above-average student, and even I could not cope. Fast forward to 2005, the year of my graduation/matriculation, I ended up passing Matric overall with above-averaged grades (not 4.0, but scattered B’s and C’s) especially in Math and Science,
however, I failed Zulu with a big F-symbol. As it happens, regardless of your other subject results, one is required to pass both languages to be considered for admission into University. This was a major blow to my future prospect of studying something in science or engineering. There was absolutely nothing I could do as no University would even look at my application because of this.</p>
<p>Anyways, I never liked to complain and have always been proactive. So two years later, after working some low paying jobs and saving some money, I thought I’d try to re-do the language I failed so that I could finally go to University. The are no avenues to redo this on your own and without a teacher or books it was going to be a tough battle. My only options were private “institutions” who offer official High School subjects and a few worthless Diplomas nowhere nearly as recognized as Degrees or Diplomas from accredited Universities. You would think that since they were of low accreditation, that they would be cheap… but they were rather pricey, often ripping off poor black students who didn’t quite make good school grades for University (because of poorly equipped schools and teachers) by offering them these nearly worthless Diplomas in “IT” or “Marketing” and “Management”. To put some pricing into perspective, taking the American SAT costs US$40 with the option of a fee waiver if you can’t afford it. Rewriting just one High school subject costs US$875 in a country where most earn less than half that in a month. Nevertherless, being the positive, proactive individual I am, I signed up and paid my hard earned money. This proved to be a big mistake as there too was a barely bilingual, uninterested teacher who could not be bothered about about teaching. She even told me out right that she is not willing nor able to teach me “her” language because it was too demanding. She admitted to not possessing the necessary skills need to educate non-native speakers of Zulu which raises the question of how she even got a teaching qualification. All the while I paid for these “services”. I then decided, despite my paid-for teacher’s negativity, that I would try to teach myself the language. After all, this how most great scholars acquired knowledge - through pursuit and the use of libraries! So off to the library it was… my city’s main Municipal Library! I had hoped to find a wide range of resources available as it had now been more than 10 years since these languages were adopted into the education system. All I found, however, was an inadequately maintained government library which was slowly falling apart. In the end, I came out with just three books, one of which was for 5th graders. Imagine going to Frankfurt, and wanting to learn German. One of the first places you would go is to the library. Imagine finding only three books on “how to speak German”. With all these factors combined, and considering that I would need to learn 4 years of Zulu that I was robbed of in High School, I gave up. I had accepted defeat and thought that I would just do a vocational Diploma in Electronics instead of pursuing a fully academic career path.
It is now 2012 and I have been working as a technician in the SMD field for the past two years. I feel as though I have a yearning to learn and accomplish more but still cannot go further. I recently applied to the local Universities again as a “mature” candidate to no avail as they still deny me a place based on my F-symbol in a subject I don’t even need for the course which I wish to study. (BTW, I exceed the Math and Science requirements needed for entry into Engineering).</p>
<p>Anyway, I recently discovered a possible solution to my yearining for higher education in the form of the American SAT which is available here in South Africa! So, as promised, my questions regarding these are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Can I get into a decent American University assuming I achieve high enough scores on the SAT, bearing in mind that my high school certificate isn’t that good and contains an ugly F-symbol? I assume most international students are high-flyers and I would be an embarrassment to the applicant pool. I’m aiming for 2200+ though.</p></li>
<li><p>What is the best way to fund my University tuition and living expenses? I don’t mind working for it… I’m used to that. I heard that international freshman are not allowed to work outside of campus in their first year. Anyone care to elaborate?</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, on a more immediate note, what books should I use to prepare for the SAT I? I intend to write on Dec 1st 2012 with subsequent SAT subject tests at the end of Jan 2013. Where can I find books with the curriculum of the SAT… some of the sections, especially in Math, were not part my school curriculum so I probably have to learn them but I’m quite nifty with numbers and mathematical concepts so…</p></li>
</ol>